Betrayed (30 page)

Chapter 61

Brook returned to Denver twice; once to finalize her divorce and once for Jase’s sentencing. As for the dissolution of her marriage, Clark had agreed to all her requests and the papers were signed, requiring only the judge’s approval. She felt nothing during the divorce proceeding and was merely relieved when it was over.

Jase’s sentencing was another matter entirely. While she dreaded the thought of facing her tormenters again, she was determined to have her voice heard. Lance stood by her side as she read her statement to the court. It was a struggle for both of them. For Brook, it meant reliving the horrors she had endured. For Lance, it meant watching his beloved assaulted by unbearable memories and the painful opening of old wounds. It meant remembering how he found her, nearly naked and battered in the forest. And it meant resisting the urge to pummel to death the defendant, sitting smug and unrepentant next to his attorney. Lance kept a hard eye on Jase, but Jase refused to look at him.

Brook found the ordeal so disturbing that she declined to attend the hearings of the others. Instead, she elected to submit her comments to the court in writing. Although she didn’t attend the proceedings, her parents and siblings did, keeping a strong family presence before the court as a reminder of the victim and her suffering.

Chapter 62

Lance and Brooklyn were married in a small civil ceremony. The wedding took place inside the gazebo of the quaint little park where they said their goodbyes not that long ago. With only their families in attendance, the sad memories were replaced by ones to be cherished forever. Brook’s face was radiant and Lance couldn’t stop grinning. Both sets of parents were pleased to witness the happiness and obvious love shared by the couple.

Epilog

Shortly after the wedding as the couple settled into their new life together, a hiker wandered into the clearing in front of the dwelling. Lance warily opened the door at his knock. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t by chance be Sullivan Proctor, would you?” the man asked.

“I would not,” Lance stated, firmly.

The man gave Lance a knowing look but didn’t question him further.

“Who would you be?” Lance asked, suspiciously.

“My name is Danny Norton. My dad owned all this land at one time.”

“At one time?” Lance felt a chill run up his back. “Who owns it now?”

“Well, my dad left his estate in trust to his children, but he also left instructions for us to allow one Sullivan Proctor unrestricted use of this cabin and the surrounding twenty acres. He took a liking to the man and he knew none of us wanted the old shack.” He stopped and looked around. “Although, it doesn’t look like much of a shack anymore.”

Lance stood, mouth open in surprise.

“May I ask who you are?”

“My name is Lance Matthew. I’m a close…friend of Sullivan’s. And you’re right; he has made a lot of improvements to the old place.”

The two stood in silence for a few minutes, gazing at the cabin. Finally, Danny turned and hefted a backpack from where he had set it on a stump. “Well, anyway, you might want to let Sullivan know about his legal right to use the land and cabin. Our lawyers are searching for him and hope to see him soon.” The man passed over a business card, tipped his ball cap in Lance’s direction, winked, and wandered on down the trail.

Lance dropped onto an old stump beside the door and laughed, his heart light and free for the first time in years.

Notes of Interest

Cover photo for
Betrayed
by Alina Baykov

The authors of
Betrayed
honored each of their children by using their names in the story: Coley, Danny, Denise, Donnie, Emily, Haylie, Matthew, and Randi.

Setting:

The authors took artistic liberty with the locations and geography of the great state of Colorado. Haylieville, Mt.Coley, Mt.Hazel, and the GarrisonRange are fictional. The beautiful WetMountains do exist.

Songs:

"The Darkest Hour" written and recorded by Ralph Stanley

"I Will Survive" written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris, recorded by Gloria Gaynor

"Harvest Moon" written and recorded by Neil Young

Coming soon:

Tangerine
by Wodke Hawkinson. Set in a future time when aliens are a natural part of everyday life and travel to distant planets is commonplace.

Alone, Selected Short Stories, Volume Three
by Wodke Hawkinson. More genre-spanning short fiction.

Available now:

Catch Her in the Rye, Selected Short Stories Volume One
by Wodke Hawkinson 99 cents on Kindle.

Blue, Selected Short Stories Volume Two
by Wodke Hawkinson 99 cents on Kindle.

Half Bitten
by PJ Hawkinson. A tale of vampire revenge.

James Willis Makes a Million
by K Wodke. A book for young readers about a boy who starts his first successful business at only eight years old. 99 cents on Kindle.

Contact information:

Author Website: wodke-hawkinson.com

Authors/Readers Website: findagoodbooktoread.com

Blog: http://wodke-hawkinson.com/blog1/

Facebook: Wodke-Hawkinson

Follow us on Twitter: @WodkeHawkinson

E
njoy this excerpt from Wodke Hawkinson’s

upcoming novel,
Tangerine
.

The moon’s jump terminal was much like a large airport, only on a grander scale. Hovering above the building was the enormous E-H Transporter. Sleek and ovoid, it gleamed with the sheen of an opal. Ava stood speechless before it, gaping like a tourist seeing the great pyramids for the first time. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight. Ships of all sizes were being uploaded into the E-H. The giant transporter reminded Ava of a hive with busy bees swarming around it. Closing her mouth, Ava moved into the terminal where, due to her employment with Alliance, she was spared the usual agony of pre-flight check-in. She and Pisk moved past long lines of travelers, and went directly to the boarding station.

If she thought the outside of the transporter to be impressive then she certainly found the inside to be the opposite. Barren hallways led to the center of the transporter. Here, voyagers would stand in waist-high aisles in the order they entered. Seats could be dropped from the partitions if needed, and were being used here and there as the passengers waited for the uploading to end.

Air conditioning was not supplied, deemed unnecessary for a flight lasting less than a second. However, it seemed the designers of the ship had not considered the loading time. Ava was standing behind a rather heavyset man who reeked of body odor. Unable to move backwards, or even turn to the side due to the press of people from every direction, Ava took shallow breaths as she covered her mouth with her hand and prayed they would soon get under way. Pisk buried his face in her neck.

In answer to her prayer, a recorded voice announced that they would now make the jump. A mere nano-second after this announcement, the same mechanical voice welcomed them to the primary moon of Tangerine in the 32
^nd
sector.
Amazing
, Ava thought,
never felt a thing
. She had heard stories about earlier jumps when travelers felt as if they were being pushed through the floor. Modern jumps had thankfully advanced to the point where dimension shifts were unnoticeable.

Ava followed the odoriferous man from the ship, through many hallways, and portals, until she stepped out into a sight even more amazing than the transport station on Earth’s moon. A sprawling city, alien in nature, stretched before her like a scene from a movie, only this scene was real, and she was part of it. The buildings before her were not tall, rising no more than twenty stories; but what they lacked in height they made up for in mass. Some were as long as three football fields while others were no larger than a satellite banking facility. All were made of a material unfamiliar to Ava, and ranged in color from dirty white to deep bronze. Looking over the city from her vantage point on the docking station’s balcony, Ava noticed the city expanded from that point and radiated out like the spokes of a wheel, with the buildings getting smaller in the distance.

Wow,” Ava murmured under her breath.

Turning, she scanned the interior wall of the docking station. Iron ramparts ascended high above, and stretched far on either side. Multiple levels of docking ports dotted the wall, each opening onto a platform spanning the length of the wall and interspersed with glass-enclosed lifts within which Ava could see people zipping up and down.

A burst of light caught Ava’s attention and drew her eyes upward. A meteor shower was in progress. As the meteors hit the protective shields of the complex, they were repelled, emitting an array of spectacular colors and drawing ohhs and ahhs from observers.

As the stellar show ended, Ava continued gazing up, marveling over the unseen force that protected the living beings within its shelter. Invisible to the eye, the shield could deflect massive projectiles from the outside while maintaining an artificial environment within. These force fields had a strange quality; they allowed nothing to move them from the outside but were completely flexible from the inside. It has not been determined to what degree a shelter could flex, as the maximum had not yet been reached.

Ava noticed that vids in the area were offering information about the jump site and the surrounding city. She stepped near and jacked her headphones. Watching the vid she listened to the commentator. Pisk placed his ear next to hers so he could listen too. They learned how the station dealt with waste of all kinds, turning it into useful material, including fuel for ships and supplementation of the city’s power supply. Businesses offering a range of goods and services from the practical to the whimsical, including hotels, entertainment venues, and souvenir shops from multiple galaxies, stood ready to meet the needs of the interstellar traveler. Information kiosks were situated throughout the terminal.

Scanning ahead, Ava looked at the different views of Tangerine. One shot showed the planet from deep space. She thought it resembled a big dip of sherbet hung suspended in blackness, its huge moon a generous dollop of cream, and its second smaller moon a mere dot. Although uninhabited by “intelligent life,” the planet offered a variety of indigenous flora and fauna that would fascinate and intrigue any scientist.

Ava disconnected from the vid, and looked skyward again. Floating above the city, like an oversized balloon, was the planet Tangerine. Gazing at the glorious shades of orange, Ava felt strangely drawn to visit the planet now, but that wasn’t to be. While Tangerine was on her list of assignments, she wouldn’t visit it until later. Her first mission was in the galaxy, Alfea, four jumps from her present site. The first stage of those jumps was being announced now. She took one last longing look at the planet before she and Pisk entered the portal to the transporter to make their next jump.

Arriving on Xenorel’s moon, Ava took possession of her ship and was cleared for flight. Pisk settled into the co-pilot’s seat, his large eyes on Ava. Following the coordinates given her by flight command, Ava maneuvered away from the moon station. Moving past large barges and ships smaller than her own she gloried in the feel of being in control; of having no one to answer to directly, at least not here and now.

After exiting the main congestion, Ava found nothing but space in front of her.

“Look at that, Pisk,” Ava breathed in awe. “All that space just waiting for us.” She and her companion soaked up the view for a few minutes. Finally, Ava asked, “Ready?”

Pisk nodded in agreement.

Ava programmed the coordinates for their first stop, hit a button, and the ship entered hyper speed. Leaving Xenorel’s moon behind, she began her new career hurtling through a blaze of stars, with new experiences waiting to be found.

E
njoy this preview of
Half-Bitten
by PJ Hawkinson

Available now.

Prelude

“I’m bored,” a young woman, by appearance maybe eighteen years old, said for the hundredth time. “Why can’t we move, we’ve been here more than long enough.

A boy who appeared to be the same age as the girl agreed with vigor, “Come on Damien, it’s time to go somewhere new. These hills have lost their appeal,” he referred to the hills near the surrounding city of Edinburgh, in Ireland, where they lived in luxury in a smallish castle.

Damien looked at the two complainers, and then turned to the third member of his family, “What about you? Do you want to leave also?”

A boy, around the same age as the other two, or at least by appearances, glanced up from his studies of Divinci’s art with mild confusion. “Leave,” he said, “and go where?”

“Spin the globe Damien,” the girl suggested. “It’s my turn to close my eyes and stop it from spinning. This will be fun; I know I’ll stop it at a good place.”

“Sure,” the first boy said with sarcasm, “and if your finger lands in the middle of an ocean are we suppose to go there?”

“Ha, ha,” she laughed falsely. “Come on Damien, what do you say?”

Damien sighed and rose from his position at an exquisite grand piano. He had been playing a haunting tune when his oldest two
children
had rudely interrupted him. Now, he moved to a beautiful globe centered on an ornate mahogany stand. Reaching out a long finger, he gave the globe a nonchalant spin. The young girl closed her eyes, stuck out a finger, and stopped the globe from spinning.

“Where are we going?” asked the first boy.

She squinted at the globe, and then frowned, “Spin it again, Damien,” she demanded.

“Nope, that’s not the way it is done,” said the first boy. “Where are we going?” He moved forward and looked, “Oh lord,” he groaned. “She’s right, spin it again.”

The second boy came to look and said with a laugh, “You know the rules. As long as Damien spins the globe, where it stops is where we go. Peering at the globe, he said, “And it looks like we are off to the center of the United States of America. Better start packing.”

Damien frowned and then sighed hugely, “I’ll contact movers, and find us a place to live.” Turning, he was gone.

The center of the United States of America was the home of a young girl who was exactly the age she appeared. This girl was living her live in a decent way, going about in the ways of fifteen year old girls, but for the last year she has been teetering upon turning a corner of life; the wrong corner.

As she moves towards this corner, another family moves towards her; a family that could mean her salvation; or her death. Let’s meet her and find out…………….

CHAPTER 1

My name is Gertrude Penelope Purdy. I know, terrible hunh; I’m named after both my Grandmothers so I honestly can’t complain, at least not aloud.

I’m not much to look at; I’m 5’6” tall, 102 lbs, built on the slight to medium side. I’ve got pretty nice tits and my ass isn’t big, but, I wish my waist was smaller. My eyes are liquid green. I have heart-shaped lips and a slight crook to my nose.

My hair is plain old brown, wavy, and tends towards curly when the weather is damp; I usually iron it when it gets that way. My voice is medium. I’m just your average plain-Jane, your ordinary, everyday girl. That is, right up to the time I am bitten by a vampire. However, that is yet to come.

As to my personality, well, I think it is lacking; I never seem to be able to be ‘cool’ like the other kids no matter how hard I try. Consequentially, I tend to over try on everything to make others like me. I certainly don't care about girls much, but boy do I want the boys to like me.

When I was growing up, I always tried to act sexy around the friends of my brother Davy. Davy is six years older than I am and I'm sure I embarrassed him when he had friends over to our house. Whenever they came over, I would hang around, swing my hips, and poke out my non-existent tits. Not that any of them ever laughed at me; they just ignored me, which definitely did not help my low self-esteem problem.

I’m 15 now, and me and a lot of kids my age go to the races every weekend. Most kids are dropped off in groups by one of their folks about 7 pm, and then picked up by another about 11 pm when the races are over. Need I say that I don’t have a close friend to ride with to the races? I always ride with my next-door neighbors; I jump out as soon as we get to the track yelling that I will see them after the races. I don’t want the other kids to know that I have to catch a ride with adults instead of friends. Oh, and do I even need to mention none of us have ever watched a race?

All of us kids usually hang out near the concession stand with us girls flirting with the boys that hang around. I always have to resort to measures I am not at all proud of in order to be noticed above the rest of the girls. While they all flirt in a no-contact manner, I have to resort to full contact.

Take for instance the time Peter Remsky, a cute 19 year old, was the target of the flirting for a couple of months. Peter was eyeballing all the other girls and no matter how hard I tried, he never seemed to see me. I started dropping hints that I could offer more then the other girls: I would coyly suggest that I like to French kiss or suggest that it was kind of cold and maybe we could get warm by getting closer. Finally, my hints got his attention and we started to do a lot of hugging, and even managed some French kissing (it was new to me but I caught right on). However, the whole time he had his body smashed against mine, he was still looking at the other girls, and all the while, the other girls were calling me a slut under their breaths or, sometimes right out-loud. Hurt!